1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to processing spoken commands and more specifically to spoken commands directed to instructing a robotic arm to perform a task.
2. Introduction
Robotic appendages such as arms are becoming increasingly common. As such, users demand ever more intuitive ways to control and interact with such robotic arms. One traditional way is to control various degrees of mobility of the robotic appendage via a button, switch, slider, or other mechanical mechanism. Other control schemes include motion tracking or preprogramming repetitive motions. Each of these control schemes presents various problems, such as occupying a user's attention with pressing buttons or inflexibility outside the preprogrammed motions.
Spoken language commands and, more broadly, natural language interfaces could be more natural. However, natural language commands are difficult to interpret properly. Misinterpreted spoken language commands may be problematic, dangerous, or even nonsensical to execute. Thus, spoken language interfaces for robotic controls can be improved to better interpret spoken commands, or to better deal with misrecognized commands.
In simple systems, commands can be made up of only short sentences. For example, in a simple search system, every command is a search task. In more complex systems, the task is more difficult to ascertain. Commands are more complex and have a wider variety in the types of commands and arguments that the commands include. The task complexity increases, which can lead to additional difficulties in processing natural language commands. Generic semantic parsers do not have high accuracy in this problem domain.